The Case Against 8 tracks tide change for gay rights (with video)

Directors Ryan White, Ben Cotner focus on Prop 8

When Ryan White and Ben Cotner started rolling cameras on their new documentary in 2008, most Americans said they were opposed to gay marriage. By the time they brought The Case Against 8 to the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, the statistics showed the opposite, with 55 per cent of those polled saying they supported same-sex marriage and all the benefits a legal union allows.

“It’s pretty crazy if you think about it,” says White, sitting next to Cotner on the couch shortly after their premiere screening in Park City, Utah.

“It goes to show you that people really do change, and public opinion can shift very quickly if you give them a compelling reason to question their assumptions. I think this case in particular had a big role in changing the way people looked at gay marriage as more of a human rights issue, and I think Ted Olson coming to the case as a conservative had a lot to do with that,” says Cotner.

The “case” that gives the film its name and raison d’être is the challenge to California Ballot Proposition 8, which disallowed gay couples in California from engaging in legal matrimony. Spearheaded by liberals and community activists looking to overturn the initiative as unconstitutional in the U.S. Supreme Court, the case made some surprising allies along the way — most notably Olson, the legal eagle credited with putting George W. Bush in the White House.

“A lot of people looked at us as traitors in a way … They couldn’t understand why we were putting this noted conservative lawyer with these huge ties to the Republican Party in our film,” says White.

Directors Ben Cotner, left, and Ryan White are behind the HBO documentary The Case Against 8

“What they didn’t understand was how important Ted really was. His involvement forced the Democrats’ hand. By taking a huge risk both personally and professionally, he changed the conversation. It wasn’t just about partisan politics. Ted made this about human rights,” says White.

Together with his old foe David Boies, the elder statesman of liberal legal causes, the two make for a rather dynamic duo throughout The Case Against 8, ensuring all the legalese is explained with all the warmth and clarity of Atticus Finch speaking to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.

But there is another story beneath the legal one, and it belongs to the not-so-ordinary folk who were willing to be the guinea pig plaintiffs: two gay couples who opened their lives to the American justice system and Cotner and White’s cameras for the duration.

These men and women are the reason why The Case Against 8 has so much emotional power. They bare their souls. Some also bare the shame they’ve carried subconsciously their whole lives.

‘Of course gay people should be in the military. Of course we should be able to get married’

“I think that’s the element all LGBTQ people respond to,” says White. “I think there are things that you don’t really want to think about when you are gay that making this movie made me think about. I grew up thinking I would never get married or be in the military because I was gay. I didn’t really question that. But now, I think it’s absurd. Of course gay people should be in the military. Of course we should be able to get married.”

Cotner and White say every revelation lead to another, and another, until sooner or later the entire house of cards we call reality started to look a little crazy.

“There was something very special happening as this trial started to unfold. We both knew we didn’t want to make a movie about whether gay marriage was right or wrong. We just wanted to tell the story of these characters and their journey, regardless of the substance of the case … and that was the right decision, because it’s the characters who make the whole case,” says White.

“We also didn’t want to make a movie with a lot of gay people crying in it. So we don’t really see that …. The most emotional person in the film is Ted Olson. Let me tell you, no one cries or hugs more than Ted.”